Y’all……  One of the things I can always, always count on, is Facebook asking, “What’s on your mind, Michael?”  And normally, I just kinda ignore the question and go on to wish folks a happy birthday, check out what fun, or not so fun, memories I have listed for the day and to check in with folks….  However.  However, today, I have plenty on my mind.  What’s on my mind today is that I am just so, SO, over people spouting Scripture to justify their hate, their prejudices, and their ambition.  Especially during this election season, we have candidates claiming that they want to  ‘save’ you, the children, this country from all manner of things.  One of the ads I saw this week was in support of ICE and the claim was that they were helping to “save the country” and implying that they were trying to “keep it pure for the future, claiming that border walls and deportations and children under the age of twelve alone in courtrooms were all justifiable.”  I.  Was.  Incensed.    And then, THEN another politician (whose name I don’t even remember at this point) went on to talk about what a good person they are and how they are a “Bible believing Christian” who wants to continue the “War on Woke” by excluding this and that person and promoting vilifying another candidate who was of a different religion and most definitely not white.

What the actual heck?  Apparently, their Bible is far, FAR different from mine.  Coz the Hebrew Scripture reading appointed for today must come from a wildly different Bible than the one said politician believes.  From Exodus 22 we read:

Thus says the LORD:  “You shall not molest or oppress an alien, for you were once aliens yourselves in the land of Egypt. You shall not wrong any widow or orphan. If ever you wrong them and they cry out to me, I will surely hear their cry. My wrath will flare up, and I will kill you with the sword; then your own wives will be widows, and your children orphans. “If you lend money to one of your poor neighbors among my people, you shall not act like an extortioner toward him
by demanding interest from him.  If you take your neighbor’s cloak as a pledge, you shall return it to him before sunset; for this cloak of his is the only covering he has for his body. What else has he to sleep in? If he cries out to me, I will hear him; for I am compassionate.”

Sounds pretty “woke” to me, and remember, this is from the Old Testament, before we even get to the Jesus bits of scripture. 

Speaking of the “Jesus bits”, guess what the Gospel reading for today is!!!  Those of you who have hung out with me for more than a second know what my most oft quoted verses are, and here we go…

When the Pharisees heard that Jesus had silenced the Sadducees,
they gathered together, and one of them, a scholar of the law tested him by asking, “Teacher, which commandment in the law is the greatest?” He said to him, “You shall love the Lord, your God, with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind. This is the greatest and the first commandment. The second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself.  The whole law and the prophets depend on these two commandments.”  (Matthew 22:34-40)

If you’re gonna proclaim yourself to be a Christian (literally “little Christ”), then you darn well better be at least trying to do what Jesus has taught us to do and being what Jesus has taught us to be.  And I’m not talking about just the politicians advertising their own “holiness”, but about every one of us.  Further, every tiny bit of scripture in the Christian Bible has to be read through the lens of what Jesus taught and commanded of us. Paul continues this point in his letter to the Ephesians when he wrote:

Brothers and sisters:  Do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God, with which you were sealed for the day of redemption.  All bitterness, fury, anger, shouting, and reviling must be removed from you, along with all malice.  And be kind to one another, compassionate, forgiving one another as God has forgiven you in Christ.  So be imitators of God, as beloved children, and live in love, as Christ loved us and handed himself over for us as a sacrificial offering to God for a fragrant aroma.  (Eph 4:30—5:2)

You’ve heard me say it nine thousand two hundred and eighty-seven times:  You are the only Bible some folks will ever read and the only Jesus some folks will ever see.  Whoever wrote the Book of James put it this way:

What good is it, my brothers and sisters, if someone claims to have faith but has no deeds? Can such faith save them?  Suppose a brother or a sister is without clothes and daily food. If one of you says to them, “Go in peace; keep warm and well fed,” but does nothing about their physical needs, what good is it? “Thoughts and prayers, anyone?) In the same way, faith by itself, if it is not accompanied by action, is dead.  Show me your faith without deeds, and I will show you my faith by my deeds. You believe that there is one God. Good! Even the demons believe that—and shudder.  You see that a person is considered righteous by what they do and not by faith alone.  As the body without the spirit is dead, so faith without deeds is dead.  (James 2:14-17)

So…..whilst we’re examining politicians and ourselves, let me ask you, if you were to be put on trial for being a follower of Jesus, would you be found guilty?  How would your “works” stack up in court?  What evidence would your Facebook, Insta, Tik Tok, or whatever social media you use do to help or hinder your cause?  This is a question I have to ask myself, on the regular, before I post anything.

When I was but a wee lad, we sang, “And they’ll know we are Christians by our love, by our love.  Yes, they’ll know we are Christians by our love.”    

We, all of us, need to work on that.